People In Their Rooms Alone
by altschmerz
Summary: Learning to let people be nice to you is harder than it sounds. (or: A family that actually acts like a family, and a physically affectionate one that enjoys spending time together at that, is nothing Billy knows what to do with. Despite this, though, and despite the fact that it might be too late for him, he wants to try.) (gen, found family, shameless fluff)


i love my kids and i'm here to be the touch starved found family content i wish to see in the world. like, they were all so affectionate with each other, and you gotta imagine that's an adjustment for billy who is probably used to... not that. this is, for all that the focus is mostly on physical affection, a gen fic!

fair warning there's a couple moments of extremely vaguely implied abuse in past foster placements billy was in, but nothing described or even outright said.

title again from the unlikely candidates' 'home'.

* * *

January creeps in like an early morning frost. Billy doesn't notice it coming until it's already there, until it's a new year and he's been living in the Vasquez house for over a month. Given the events of his earliest days there, the chaos and danger every moment seemed to be fraught with, it's taken longer than usual to find any kind of rhythm or routine - despite how, for the first time, he's actually _trying_ to. He spends a while just waiting for things to calm down, for the strangeness that accompanied all of their (way, _way_ too many) brushes with death to fade and whatever kind of normal exists here to return and take its place. Most of the stranger things about this family - the things that, from Billy's point of view, make them seem most like a _family_ and less like a house full of strangers playing make believe - are sure, he figures, to stop happening soon.

(He hopes they will stop soon. He doesn't want to get used to this, to they way they're treating each other like the words parent, child, sibling, mean more than the word 'foster' tacked in front of them does. Not if it's going to go away just when he starts to believe he'll get to keep it.)

Except… It doesn't stop. It doesn't fade, it doesn't change, and Billy is left more confused than ever. He starts to think, after January 15th rolls around and they're still acting like a family (like they want to be _his_ family), that maybe this is just how they are here, in this weird house of _weird_ people. It isn't just one thing, either. There are several things he doesn't know how to adjust to, habits and behaviors Billy is at a loss as to how to deal with, it's hard to know where to begin with it all.

There's the hovering over each other, first of all, the weird sense of togetherness that sees usually no fewer than two members of the family downstairs in the living or dining room at any given time. Billy has never lived in a house where the people seemed this inclined to just _be together_, in each other's company, day after day. He's used to awkward or standoffish or scared kids alone in rooms or somewhere out of the house until they absolutely had to return for curfew, foster parents who sat alone in front of the tv or in offices. The houses were always too quiet, interspersed sometimes, in the worse ones, with bursts of loud, angry sound.

Here though… Here there's Eugene, playing games on his computer out on the living room couch, and Darla coloring at the table across from where Mary works on her homework. Pedro doesn't talk much but he'll listen to Freddy babble as he flips through comic books, just _letting_ his chatty foster brother hang out in the room while he lifts weights. And Rosa and Victor, flitting around, asking questions and actually waiting for the answers, checking in on what the kids are up to like they're _interested_, like what the kids are doing is important because it matters to _them_ and that's all it takes.

And then there's the… the _affection_. Billy's never lived with people like this before, in a house so full of casual touch that he's constantly seeing Rosa's fingers brush down someone's cheek as she looks at them like they're the best thing she's ever seen, Victor's hand ruffling one of the kids' hair with a smile so wide it crinkles the corners of his eyes. It's not just them, either. Darla's hanging off everyone, constantly, of course, but Eugene is a leaner, if you're standing or sitting next to him while he fiddles with one device or another, and Mary will kiss the top of the nearest head as she passes it like that's a totally normal thing to do. They all act like this is totally, completely normal, and Billy feels like he's stuck in the Twilight Zone.

(Billy tells himself confused is all he feels when he sees them like this, sees them touching each other so often and so easily, almost thoughtlessly casual in the way they exist in each other's space, any question of whether the hand on their shoulder might harm them long since extinguished. He tries his hardest not to acknowledge the other thing he feels when he watches Freddy and Pedro work on Pedro's math homework in the dining room, shoulders pressed together and heads bent close. The squeeze in his chest, sharp and aching and _hollow_, is hard to ignore, though, and Billy is left to sit there in his bitterness, his horrible jealous _want_, no idea how to make it stop.)

January comes, and the weirdness turns out to not actually be weirdness but just how these people _are_, and Billy sticks out like a standoffish, outcast thumb. He's been sitting up in his and Freddy's room and pretending he can't hear people walking past outside, because he's too much of a coward to just go downstairs like everybody else. They're all down there acting like a family, and he just… doesn't have that skill. He hovers a few times, awkwardly in the doorway, before turning around and going back upstairs, frustrated with himself for being able to fight a supervillain suspended in the air above downtown Philly but completely unable to just _hang out_ with his foster siblings.

"You can just go in there, you know. It's your house too."

Rosa's voice comes from behind him one day, an afternoon on a Thursday, and Billy isn't proud of the way he jumps. He's been standing there for… longer than he's going to admit he's been standing there for, watching Darla and Eugene watch a movie. Or, watching Darla watch a movie, half sprawled across Eugene's lap. Eugene himself is playing on his phone, held up in the hand propped against the top of the couch over Darla's head. Billy's been debating joining them, eyeing the end of the couch unoccupied next to Darla's feet, but hadn't actually brought himself to go in, and that's when Rosa showed up.

"It's fine," he blurts out, when he notices the concern seeping into her expression of one fondly raised eyebrow and a slight smile. "I don't really… like, uh, movies. Yeah. I don't like movies."

"You don't like movies," Rosa repeats back to him and Billy nods, hoping that his cheeks just _feel_ hot and aren't actually the flamingo-esque color he's afraid they are. Her other eyebrow joins the first, and now she looks amused-concerned.

"Yep," Billy says faux-brightly, beginning to edge around her towards the staircase. "And I got a lot of… homework to do. For school. So I'm gonna go and do that, see you at dinner, bye."

Luckily for him - his only stroke of luck that day - Rosa doesn't follow him upstairs, and doesn't bring it up again later, either his patently false claim of not liking movies or his hangup about being anywhere in the house other than his room. Nevertheless, echos of the interaction remain. She nudges him with a meaningful look the next time they get home and the others make a beeline for the common areas, leaving Billy standing in the hall, wavering between the doorway and the stairs. Billy shakes his head and goes upstairs, but he keeps thinking about it.

_You can just go in there, you know._ Rosa's words hang over him, and the longer he thinks about them, the more irritated with himself he gets.

It's January 21st when Billy's patience with himself snaps, and he can't deal with feeling like he's still acting like a visitor with _"it's your house too"_ knocking around in his head, and he just… goes into the living room.

It is, quite literally, the stupidest Billy Batson has ever felt in his life. He walks in trying to look casual, and absolutely sure he's failing miserably. His face feels ten degrees hotter than normal, his heart is pounding in his ears, and it's _stupid_. It's just a living room. It's just Eugene, on his computer on the couch, and Mary, reading a book in the chair in the corner. _It's my house too_, Billy thinks fiercely, and drops down into the couch next to Eugene with slightly more force than strictly necessary.

When the cushions jostle him, Eugene looks up from his computer and lifts one side of his headphones off his ear, glancing over his shoulder. Billy cringes, braces for the whole thing to backfire, voice in his head adamantly informing him that he's made a huge mistake and waited too long and missed his chance to be part of-

"Oh, hey Billy," Eugene says, drops the headphones back over his ears, and returns to what he's doing. It's all extremely anticlimactic, and Billy is feeling like a giant fool, heart finally leveling out again, when he feels something knock against his arm and his head snaps back to the side.

Eugene is a leaner, and Billy is not an exception to this. The kid's leaned back against him now, re-consumed in the world of what appears to be designing some sort of game level, editing pieces of code he can't make heads or tails of. For a few long moments, Billy holds very, very still, and breathes deliberately slowly, in and out, like if he so much as breathes too sharply, he'll shatter the stillness of the moment. Across the room, he knows Mary is watching him. He can feel her eyes on him, and when he glances up at her, she smiles, gentle and warm, then looks back down at her book. The more seconds tick by and Eugene keeps using Billy's arm as a prop to hold himself up, the more he relaxes. Settles.

Eventually, when it doesn't seem like Eugene has plans of moving any time soon, Billy extracts his phone from his hoodie pocket and starts a game of 2048. They stay there until Eugene finishes constructing the level of the game he's been building for the better part of the month, and closes the computer. He pops off the couch and heads for the stairs, off to do who-knows-what, and Billy remains where he sits for a bit longer. His arm, where Eugene's back had been pressed against it, feels odd, like a kind of pins and needles that had nothing to do with blood flow. It's the longest moment of contact Billy can remember in… he can't put a timeframe on it, and he swallows around the lump in his throat.

He's so lost in thought, in the memory of a dozen stiff pats on the shoulder from case workers or cops bringing him back to the same clinical hallways, the only way he's really been touched kindly in the last ten years, that he doesn't notice Mary getting up. Billy doesn't realize she's moving until she's already rounded the couch, and her hand has come down on his shoulder, the same place of those split-second pats. Her fingers dig into the fabric of his sweater a bit as she squeezes, then her hand moves, pulling his beanie back far enough to plant a kiss on his forehead, then pushing the hat back down over his eyes.

"Mary!" he yelps indignantly, and the sound of her laughter follows her out of the room.

Billy doesn't go back up to his and Freddy's room until it's time to go to bed that night. It's both more nerve wracking and less weird than he thought it was going to be. The family moves about their lives around him like he's always been there. Like he's supposed to be there.

It's Victor's turn to drop them off at school the next morning. They're a little early so the campus is mostly empty, busses not yet rolled in carrying scores of students to fill the halls with crowds and noise. Billy is just rounding the back of the van, about to cross the street, looking over his shoulder saying something to Freddy, when a number of things happen at once. Freddy's face loses its grin and morphs into shock, Victor's mouth opens like he's about to shout something, and a hand closes around Billy's upper arm.

Billy's head jerks to the side, looking sharply at whoever it is that's halted his path, right as the car he hadn't seen soaring down the street like an overzealous extra from the _Fast and Furious_ franchise zips past the very space he would've been standing if he'd taken one more step.

"Billy!" Victor's frightened call sounds what would've been just a moment too late had Pedro's reflexes not kicked in a second earlier and caught Billy before he could quite literally walk into traffic.

"'S okay," Pedro says simply, his other hand coming up to pat Billy on the chest, once, twice, then stop there, a warm, solid weight. "I got him."

_I got him_. It's said so calmly, and Pedro hadn't jerked him back either, merely taken ahold of Billy and stilled him in his place, holding him there until the danger was past. Victor is saying something else, but Billy isn't paying attention. He's instead focused on the hold Pedro still has on him, keeping him there next to the van while everyone has a chance to calm down and find their bearings again. When Billy's eyes turn from where they'd tracked the car on down the street, Pedro smiles at him, a slow, reassuring smile completely reflective of the most steady, even-keeled person Billy has ever met.

It takes Billy a second to process that even when Pedro's grip leaves his arm, palm patting once more before dropping from over his sternum where it had stayed, guarding Billy in case he decided to step out into the street again, the contact doesn't leave entirely. Pedro's got him around the back now, hand on Billy's shoulder blade as he starts to resume movement towards the building. For his part, Billy stays rooted in place, causing Pedro to stop and look back at him.

"I've got you," Pedro repeats, concern in his eyes, and the words are firm and full of the kind of conviction you can only have when you're a teenager and trying to convince someone you have the strength to keep them safe. As if this is about Billy being afraid to cross the street after almost being hit. As if this _isn't_ about how Billy's own mother wouldn't let him hug her the first time they saw each other in ten years but here his foster brother is, doing something that approximates _holding his hand_ while crossing the street.

"Okay," Billy says, and it isn't about being afraid of another car at all.

Pedro's hand stays there on his back, like some kind of watchful guide, all the way up the steps and into the building. A year ago, Billy would have shrugged Pedro off, maybe shot him a daggered glare for good measure. Hell, a _month_ ago he'd have shrugged Pedro off. But he's trying to be different now. He's trying to be a good brother now, so he lets the hand stay, and finds he doesn't actually mind it.

Billy thinks he could get used to this, maybe, the way someone's hands on him makes him feel safe. Protected.

Maybe it's this thought that leads to what he does when they've passed through security, and he's looking at the back of Darla's excited head as she babbles to Eugene about a cool science project they'll be doing that day, and remembering that first day and how sad she'd looked when he pried her off him.

"Hey," Billy says, trying to sound casual, like it's just another day and he has every idea what he's doing. Darla turns around, bright and smiling and the personification of everything good in the world, and Billy holds his arms out, a wordless invitation.

For such a small person, Darla packs quite the impact barreling straight into a person's chest. Billy crouches down just before she gets to him so he can give her a proper hug, which puts her shoulder on a direct trajectory to knock the wind out of him, but it's worth it for the happy giggling he hears right in his ear, surprisingly strong fingers digging into the back of his shirt. He wants to tell her to never be anything but this person, this wonderful, opinionated, big-hearted person, but that's not the sort of thing you say at school first thing in the morning on a Friday, so he settles for hugging her a little tighter and smiling at her when she lets go and bounces back.

For the life of him, Billy can't identify the impulse that has him saying what he says next.

"Have a good day at school, little sister." The words feel unnatural and clunky in his mouth, like he's building them out of scrap materials using the wrong tools, but Darla doesn't seem to notice. She just beams at him and throws her arms back around him, squeezing hard and then taking off down the hall.

When he straightens up and turns towards his own class, he catches sight of Freddy, standing there in the middle of the walkway, with a big dopey grin to rival Darla's plastered across his face.

"Oh shut up," Billy tries to scoff at him, though it falls a little flat, and he settles for rolling his eyes and leaving for algebra.

When he gets home after school that day, Billy goes straight upstairs. He climbs up onto his bunk and lays there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of everybody else getting settled downstairs. Darla's laughter shrieks up the stairs, and he can hear Eugene laughing too, some protest from Freddy. Mary's chiding voice follows, but she's amused too. The only person Billy doesn't hear is Pedro, which isn't a surprise. Even Rosa and Victor's voices float up the stairs every so often, responding to the kids or calling to each other from different rooms.

"Gonna come down?"

The words from the door take Billy by surprise. Turns out Pedro's absence from the din downstairs hadn't been due to his general nature as the quietest person in the house, but because he hadn't been there at all. In his focus on the voices, Billy must have missed the creak of the staircase, and now there he is, head poked in the door, looking at Billy with a raised eyebrow that reminds him of Rosa. Billy just looks back silently before shaking his head, then shrugging. His head rolls back on his pillow and he stares once more at the ceiling, at the weird textured pattern that one foster sibling with a bizarre fixation on interior design once told him was supposed to hide dust.

"I don't…" He can't explain it. It isn't explainable, how Pedro himself had made him feel so safe that morning, how he'd been taking a knee in the school front hallway to hug Darla not even nine hours earlier, and now he can't bring himself to so much as _walk downstairs._

"Takes time," is all Pedro says in response. Billy's eyes flick over to the doorway, at the painfully understanding look on his brother- foster brother- on _Pedro's_ face. For all that he doesn't talk much, he seems to hear everything. Even the things Billy hasn't actually said. "It's okay. There's room for you, if you change your mind." With that, he turns and leaves, silhouette in the doorway replaced by a rectangle of distant light from the living room downstairs.

Billy doesn't go down. He lays in bed and plays on his phone and stares at the wall and pretends to be asleep when Freddy comes up to go to bed. There's a click as the light turns out, and the three-impact patterned gait Billy has gotten so used to over the last weeks. The other boy hovers there for a moment in the dark, standing at eye level with Billy's bunk, like he might be about to shake him awake. In the end, he doesn't, just says quietly, "Night, Billy," and goes to bed. Billy buries his face in his pillow and tells himself he'll try again tomorrow.

He spends tomorrow at the park with Freddy, which makes him feel better on not hanging out with him when they got home the day before, but once they've returned to the house, Billy goes right back up to his room, cracks a book for an English project, and sits up on his bunk. Maybe twenty or so minutes later, Pedro's head pokes in again, asking the question without asking. Billy answers without answering either, one small shake of his head, to which Pedro shrugs, and leaves.

It happens again on Sunday, and then the school week begins anew. Still, despite this, Pedro keeps trying. He keeps poking his head in, sometimes asking 'coming down?' or saying 'we're watching _Star Trek'_ with an implied _if you want to come watch with us_ tacked onto the end. Billy doesn't go watch with them. But he does keep opening his arms for Darla to hug him goodbye in the morning at school, and he lets Mary fix his hair when he pulls his hat off, and progress is progress, right?

It's the following Saturday, and it's Rosa's turn to pick the movie at movie night, which probably means they'll be watching something old and animated but smart, like _Prince of Egypt_ or _Nightmare Before Christmas_. Pedro pokes his head in as the menu screen music is playing, and it's hard to tell who's more surprised when Billy climbs down the ladder off his bunk - Pedro, or Billy himself.

Just like Pedro had promised, that Friday after he'd kept Billy from walking into the path of a reckless Toyota driver, there is in fact room for him. A deliberate space has been left on a couch facing the TV, the one next to the big armchair where Rosa sits with Darla cuddled in her lap. At a nudge from Pedro, Billy walks over and sits down in the space between Freddy and Eugene, acutely aware of everyone in the room watching him do so. He's expecting some kind of commentary, a surprised exclamation or joke about how he's surfaced from hibernation, but none follow. Eugene, true to form, waits for Billy to get settled, then turns sideways, throws his legs over the arm of the sofa, and uses Billy's shoulder to prop himself up.

Once this has happened, it's like the tension was shattered, and the rushing of his own pulse fades from Billy's ears, calming and settling. The movie starts, and everything feels so strangely normal, like there had been a space here forever, just waiting for him to find his way to it and complete a puzzle he hadn't known he was part of. Freddy follows Eugene's example about twenty minutes into the movie, leaning over and making himself comfortable against Billy's side.

Billy feels frozen again. He feels like an imposter, and he doesn't know how to do this. He's never had brothers to sprawl across him while watching a movie before, and he's not sure what he's supposed to do right about now. Looking surreptitiously around the room, he spots Rosa, whose focus is on the movie but whose hand is moving slowly and thoughtlessly over her youngest child's head, fingers playing with the ends of Darla's hair.

Moving hesitantly, Billy lifts his own hand, lightly touching the side of Freddy's head. The klaxon sirens of _you're doing this wrong, you're messing it up, just get up and go back upstairs_ take several long, heart-frozen moments to calm and quiet, but calm and quiet they do. Billy copies Rosa's example, moving his hand cautiously across Freddy's head, fingers lightly coming through his curly hair. Freddy doesn't seem to mind at all, having gone completely boneless and relaxed against him. Every so often, Billy's fingers catch in a slight tangle, and he pulls gently, barely tugging at all, until he's gotten the snare out without hurting Freddy's head.

Out of the corner of his eye, Billy notices that Rosa's attention has shifted. She's now looking right at him, and her eyes are shining brightly, and her soft smile is proud, and Billy gets the distinct sense he should be very glad she doesn't have direct present access to a camera. Billy's hand goes still on Freddy's head and awkward embarrassment grips his chest, until Rosa smiles a fraction wider and holds one finger up to her lips. She looks back to the screen then, and Billy has to blink hard against the sudden sting in his eyes.

The movie is a good one. It is indeed the _Prince of Egypt_, just like he'd predicted, and it's another odd-but-not-bad feeling on top of a sea of odd-but-not-bad feelings, that he knows her well enough to guess which movie she'll pick before she's picked it. It's odd that he lives in a house with movie nights, with a family that cuddles up together on couches to watch the same movies over and over and still has fun with them.

Darla is singing along to the song about the plagues, and so is Rosa, quietly, and Eugene is mumbling the words too, having put his phone away and turned towards the screen, and Billy doesn't ever want this moment to end. By the time the movie is over, Freddy is asleep, his cheek pressed against Billy's collarbone, and Darla, Eugene, and Pedro have all gone upstairs to bed. Mary shuffles her own way upstairs, yawning through a 'goodnight'.

"I think I'm out too," Rosa says, as Mary creaks her way to the second floor of the house. "I'm never going to make it to bed if I don't go now." She smiles tiredly at them, leaning over to

"I think you missed when we watched _Pacific Rim_ last week." Victor's voice is low and casual from across the room, and Billy looks over at him, careful not to jostle Freddy. "It's Eugene's turn next time, which means we'll be seeing the sequel for sure. What do you say, wanna make sure you're not behind?"

Billy nods, feeling his face heat with a slight blush. "Yeah," he murmurs, barely louder than a whisper. "That'd be nice."

Victor puts the movie in and fiddles with the player for a minute, before moving back to the couch and taking over the spot left behind when Eugene dragged himself upstairs to bed. His arm reaches over the back of the couch, curling around Billy's shoulders and resting a hand lightly over the back of Freddy's neck. It takes Billy a minute to relax again, to let his head fall back and his eyes drift sleepily to half-mast. There is absolutely no way he's going to get through this movie. But as Victor turns the volume down even further, and his eyelids get heavier, Billy gets the feeling that the movie hadn't even remotely been the point.

Besides, it'll be okay if he misses most of it. There's always tomorrow.


End file.
